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Silent Coaching Sequence

8 min read

Silent Coaching Sequence

Dimension: Mindset · Type: Foundation

A 24-question self-coaching protocol designed to activate a single unrealised strength, ending with a specific committed first action and an exact date.

Introduced by Katarina Posa (IOM) at the Use Your Strengths to Boost Your Career session of the UN Inter-Agency Career Week 2026, on 7 May 2026. Kata ran the sequence live with the audience, walking through all 24 questions with reflection time after each. The protocol is hers, drawing on her ICF-aligned coaching practice. The strengths-focused complement to the Silent Coaching for Goals sequence introduced by Erin Bowser at Day 4 Session 8.

The framework

A silent, written self-coaching protocol designed to take you from “I have an unrealised strength” to “I am taking action on it today” in one sitting. 24 questions, three phases, roughly 30 minutes.

When to use it

  • After running the Strengths Profile, once you have identified an unrealised strength you want to activate.
  • When you have a capability you know you have but cannot find a way to use, and you want to break through that pattern.
  • When a previous attempt at activating an unrealised strength fizzled because the commitment was too vague.

What you need

  • One specific unrealised strength: something you are good at, you enjoy, but you are not currently using or not using enough.
  • 30 quiet minutes.
  • A notebook or document. The sequence works as written reflection, not as live thinking.
  • An honest commitment to follow the sequence to the end without skipping the action-and-date questions.

How the sequence is structured

The 24 questions move through three phases:

  • Questions 1 to 6: identify and contextualise. Name the strength, articulate what changes if you used it more, find where it would add the most value, surface where it is already showing up, recall when it has worked before.
  • Questions 7 to 13: plan and locate. Where you could use it next week, what using it would look like, the smallest possible first step, what might get in the way, who could help, how progress would show.
  • Questions 14 to 24: commit and anchor. A 1-to-10 scale of current use, what would move it one point higher, the specific action, the exact date and time you will take it, and the commitment check.

Most attempts at activating a strength fail in the last phase, where the commitment dilutes into “soon” or “when I have time”. The sequence forces an action-with-date.

The 24 questions

Work through these in sequence. Write each answer down. Do not skip ahead.

  1. Which strength energises you, but you are not using enough and would like to use more?
  2. If you were using this strength more consistently, what would be different in your work?
  3. Where in your current role could this strength add the most value?
  4. Where is this strength already showing up, even in very small ways?
  5. When have you used this strength successfully before? What situation was it?
  6. What did you do in that situation that made it work well?
  7. Where specifically could you use this strength in the coming days?
  8. What would using this strength look like in that situation?
  9. What is the smallest step you could take to begin?
  10. What might get in the way of using this strength?
  11. Who could support you, or who could enable you to use this strength more, and how?
  12. How will you know that you are making progress?
  13. How would other people notice that you are making progress?
  14. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much are you currently using this strength?
  15. What would move you one point higher?
  16. What is one specific action you could take to make that happen?
  17. What other things could you do to enable you to use this strength more?
  18. After all of this, what is the one action you will take to activate this strength?
  19. When exactly will you take it?
  20. On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to taking this action?
  21. What would increase your commitment by one point?
  22. What is the baby step you will take?
  23. When will you take it?
  24. When exactly will you take it?

The repetition in questions 22 to 24 is intentional. The first time you answer “when”, you tend to be vague (“next week”). The second and third repetitions force precision (“at four o’clock today, after the session”, “Wednesday at 11am, in my one-to-one with my manager”).

Worked example

A senior programme officer has identified “coaching and developing others” as her unrealised strength after running the Strengths Profile. She runs the sequence:

  • Q1. The strength: developing junior colleagues through structured coaching conversations.
  • Q2. If she did this more, the team’s bench strength would deepen and her own role would feel more meaningful.
  • Q3. Highest value: in monthly one-to-ones with her three junior team members, currently used for status updates only.
  • Q4. Already showing up: she occasionally pulls a junior aside informally after a meeting to debrief.
  • Q5. It worked before: in her previous role, she ran a structured monthly coaching conversation with each direct report.
  • Q6. What made it work: she protected the time, used a consistent structure (the Career Conversation Playbook), and asked questions rather than giving advice.
  • Q7. Where she could use it next week: her Monday morning one-to-one with the junior officer who is preparing for an internal P3 application.
  • Q8. What it would look like: a 45-minute conversation, agenda set in advance, focused on her career direction rather than current tasks.
  • Q9. Smallest first step: send the junior officer a meeting invitation today titled “career-development conversation” with a 5-line agenda.
  • Q10. What might get in the way: the regular Monday flood of emails; her own habit of treating the one-to-one as transactional.
  • Q11. Who could help: she will tell her manager she is doing this so she has external accountability.
  • Q12 to 13. Progress signs: the junior officer comes to the next conversation with their own questions; the one-to-one is no longer just status updates.
  • Q14. Current use of the strength: 2 out of 10.
  • Q15. What would move her to 3: running the structured conversation with one junior officer once a month.
  • Q16. Specific action: send the meeting invite this afternoon.
  • Q17. Other moves: read the Mentoring Conversation Cycle before the meeting; tell her manager.
  • Q18. The one action: send the meeting invite, with a clear five-line agenda, by end of day.
  • Q19. When exactly: 4:30pm today, after this session.
  • Q20. Commitment level: 8.
  • Q21. What would increase commitment to 9: telling her manager about the move during their next one-to-one tomorrow.
  • Q22 to 24. Baby step: send the meeting invitation. Today. 4:30pm exactly.

She closes her notebook. At 4:30pm, the invitation goes out. The sequence took 35 minutes. The activation happened the same day.

Pitfalls

  • Skipping the early questions to get to the action. The early questions surface the context and confidence that make the action feel reasonable. Without them, the late-phase commitment is brittle.
  • Treating the action as the answer to “what should I do with my career?“. The sequence is about activating one strength in one situation. It is not about choosing a destination. Use Career Mapping for that.
  • Picking too big an unrealised strength. “Strategic leadership” is too big to activate with one action. Pick a more specific instance: “running structured one-to-ones”, “facilitating a cross-team workshop”, “writing a thought-leadership piece on my domain”.
  • Defining the action as a goal rather than a step. “Coach my team better” is a goal. “Send a meeting invitation today at 4:30pm” is a step. The sequence wants the step.
  • Setting “next week” as the date. Be specific. Day, time, location if relevant. The vague date is the failure mode.
  • Running the sequence and then not running it again. Each unrealised strength needs its own pass. The protocol works repeatedly.

When not to use it

When the unrealised strength has structural blockers that no first action can address (a role that genuinely has no platform for it, a manager who actively prevents it). In those cases, the activation question is upstream: how do you change the role context? Use Career Mapping and Career Conversation Playbook first.

When you are in acute fatigue or burnout. The sequence requires reflective energy. Stabilise first; come back to it.

How I use it

Personal note pending. Davide to fill.

  • Strengths Profile, the upstream four-quadrant model that surfaces unrealised strengths in the first place.
  • Silent Coaching for Goals, Erin Bowser’s 14-question variant focused on goal-to-action conversion.
  • Career Mapping, the longer-arc gap analysis that names where unrealised strengths could lead.
  • Career Conversation Playbook, the structure for the conversation an activated strength often produces with a manager.

Notes compiled by Davide Piga. Last updated 2026-05-09.

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